DETROIT (AP) - Johnnette Rule knows all too well how her job can become
a real dogfight - like the day the 10-year veteran mail carrier had to
use her
satchel to fend off a stray German shepherd.

Whether born on the streets or turned away from homes, wild dogs or their
predecessors once were pets. But when they run and breed in groups, they
cause a lot of grief.

``We've had carriers who have had plugs torn out of their arms and legs,
many
who have had their clothes torn by dogs,'' Ms. Rule said. ``It's really
ugly.''

And it's not just in Detroit.

In March, an Illinois farmer received $1,300 from the state, compensation
for
26 pigs killed in 1993 by a pack of wild dogs. Dogs killed two ostriches
in
Oregon, fatally attacked a $15,000 horse in Tennessee and joined coyotes
in
killing livestock and pets in Colorado.

In the past year, a small pack of stray dogs attacked and injured a
Massachusetts boy on his way to a school bus stop. In Oklahoma City,
front-porch mail delivery in some neighborhoods was halted after dogs
attacked several carriers.

Postal Service spokesman Mark Saunders says dogs attack 2,700 letter
carriers across the country each year, costing taxpayers about $25 million
for
medical expenses and substitute carriers. He didn't know how many of those
attacks were by wild dogs.

In Detroit, the dog menace is considered so bad that the city's postmaster
threatened to stop delivering mail to some areas.

``A lot of people are saying that because of the dogs, they're sometimes
trapped in their homes,'' said Donyale Stephen, an assistant city ombudsman.

Of the top 10 complaints to the office, roaming dogs were third this year.
Dogs
had never before been on the 24-year-old list.

The city's Animal Control Division recently got four new vehicles to boost
its
dog-catching ability.

``We've been trying to get as many dogs off the street as we can,'' Donald
Hamel, the animal control office's supervisor, said Thursday.

He said his division has made arrangements for two more animal control
officers, though they weren't included in the budget, to bring the total
to 15.
They are responsible for 144 square miles in the city of 1 million people.

Officers can snare individual dogs, but have to work as a group to round
up
packs that generally are drawn together by a female dog in heat.

``We can have packs of dogs up to 20. We can't always get them all,'' Hamel
said.

Though Detroit's exact population of feral dogs isn't known, evidence of
the
crackdown is. Animal control workers caught 919 dogs from July through
September of last year.

Through this year's first three months, crews caught 1,532.

In January, city Postmaster Lloyd Wesley Jr. asked Mayor Dennis Archer
and
the City Council to take action with ``grave urgency.'' Since meeting with
Detroit health officials, Wesley said the problem has eased, thanks partly
animal control's increased efforts.

Nevertheless, the issue still lacks priority in terms of funding. In his
budget
proposal for next year, Archer has rejected a request by Hamel's office
for
two more workers and the health department's call for $600,000 more for
animal control.

What's more, city plans for widespread razing of abandoned buildings where
dogs seek shelter could force more of them onto the streets, observers
say.
And an outbreak of distemper - a highly contagious virus that makes dogs
deranged and hasn't been seen locally since the 1980s - only adds to potential
problems: the animals already might carry rabies.

``Unfortunately, a lot of people in this city haven't gotten the message
that their
dogs should not run loose,'' said Sherry Silk, director of the Michigan
Humane
Society's Detroit office.

Yet the dogs still roam. In her Detroit neighborhood, Lovie Barrow, 80,
sees
dog packs prowling so often that ``I've gotten used to them, I guess.''

In a rundown garage across the street, she spots a gaunt, mangy German
shepherd and two other strays.